Fledgling
by walking primrose
Summary: A young woman against the odds tries to help a failing soldier come back from the brink of death.
1. Chapter 1

1.

She found him in the field, with blood seeping from the wound to his chest. She had been watching from the tree line of the cottage as men fought on the field that she used to run around on when she was young. The explosions and the shooting made her ears hurt and ring loudly, but she had kept her eyes on the men, with their lives on the line and their fate unknown. The horses, majestic and elegant, trudged on with men directing them into the firing line and towards the enemy. There had been a gunshot that seemed louder than the rest, and she had watched as the man, who now lay on the ground, fell from his horse, a bullet from an unknown gun wiping him out completely, causing him to crash to the ground like a crisp leaf in autumn. The gunfire seized from a moment, as if taking a moment of silence for another life lost at the hands of the enemy, before the war raged on. He was still, his mouth agape. She was sure that he had moved, and she believed that her mind was playing tricks on her when his hand slowly moved towards his chest in an attempt to stop the bleeding, and confirming that she had indeed seen movement.

He was alive, but barely.

She watched as the men and horses around him moved away, continuing on their journey towards the enemy and towards hope. He was alone, his face white with shock. A crimson shade was seeping into the fabric of his olive green ensemble. He was dying. He knew it, and she knew it. He was completely unaware of her watching him, of her being aware that he was dying, of her existence. But she knew of him, though his name was a guess away.

She remembered a time when she was witness to a young bird falling from its nest when its mother had gone to seek out food from the tree in the garden, and waiting and wishing for it to gather the strength to make its way back up to its home. But it was weak, and too young to fly let alone survive on its own without the support and safety of its mother. She remembered thinking that if she didn't step in and help in time then its fate would be sealed. And so she ran out without another thought, just as the neighbour's temperamental cat made its way into the garden and towards the young bird. She had scooped it into her hands, hoping that her input would at least give her some hope in the world.

But this man… he wasn't a young bird. He was a man of war, who was dying after getting shot by the enemy. His death was inevitable, but something deep in her mind and heart niggled at her. She had brought the young bird back from the brink of death, could she really help a man – an injured man who was very likely moments from death?

Time was running out and she knew it. She took a deep breath, and made a run for the door. All she could think of as she ran towards his body alone in the field, aware of the bullets skimming through the air, was that if the man's fate was out of her hands and if nothing she did could help him, just the knowledge of assisting him when all hope was lost for him was worth more than anything in the world.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: Thank you so much for the response to this, it really means a lot! I apologise for the huge gap between the first chapter and this one! I do not speak French and so everything spoke in French came from Google Translate, so if what you read is wrong then please let me know the correct terminology and I will correct it! Hope you enjoy!

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2.

"_Ne meurent pas, se il vous plaît."_

It was dark where he was, as if a huge thick blanket had been placed over his eyes preventing him from seeing where he was. He had been dragged, that much was for certain, and the gunshots were a distance away and muffled slightly. He attempted to move but his limbs and body felt heavy as if he was being weighed down by a large horse lying across him. He heard something clatter not far from him and he turned his head in the direction it had come from and attempted to open his eyes.

A thick haze prevented him from seeing clearly, making his vision blurry. He blinked a few times, wishing for the fog to disappear, and it complied with him until he was able to see a more solid figure a few feet away from him.

The person turned around and watched him for a moment. He closed his eyes and moved his head back to where it had been, and heard as shoes against wood came towards him. He felt someone pulling at his attire, undoing the buttons of his military tunic and opening it up to see the next layer of clothing. They quickly unbuttoned his under shirt, opening that up as well to expose his chest.

He heard a small gasp escape the person and he furrowed his brow at the sound. He felt soft hands as well as the roughness of a rag upon his chest, pushing down his wound.

"_N__e meurent pas, __s__e il vous plaît_,"the voice said again, and he moved his head towards the sound. He opened his eyes then and saw her. Her brown hair had cascaded over her face, and the ends tickled his abdomen. She was pale, and her eyes were determined as she added pressure to his wound. Her brown eyes flicked towards him in shock, and she breathed out heavily as shock began to overwhelm her. He reached up to her hand and gently laid it over hers.

"What is your name, ma'am?" he said, his voice hoarse.

Her face was the epitome of confusion, and she furrowed her brow for a moment before licking her lips.

"C-Clementine," she whispered, her voice heavy with an accent.

He smiled and nodded, acknowledging her. "I'm Captain Nicholls."

A small smile etched across her face and she nodded. Her eyes flicked back to the rag in her hands that was changing to a dark crimson. He sensed that something was wrong from the change of expression on her face and he squeezed her hand.

"Je compte sur toi," he whispered, his face becoming pale. She smiled at him as tears filled her eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

Italics are French.

3.

He fell into unconsciousness as soon as they had introduced themselves to each other, and Clementine watched the rise and fall of his strong chest and believed it to be a good sign. She still had her hand upon the wound that would scar his chest, but doubt seemed to plague her mind. She had read the medical journal years ago that her father kept, but for the life of her, she was unable to remember a thing. Medicine fascinated her and she assumed that it was due to being in the current situation she found herself in that her mind was blank. She closed her eyes and tried to keep her breathing calm and steady. It was no good and so she opened her eyes to stare at the man lying on the dining table where her family ate dinner in the evenings and thought for a moment about how their lives were different.

This man only gave her his name, and yet her mind raced. His family at home would be worried about his safety, wanting nothing more than for the war to bring their home and back to them. They wouldn't know that he was lying on the dining table of a family with a bullet in his chest and his life fading fast. Did he have a sweetheart at home? Was she thinking about him and remembering the moments they shared before the war tore them apart? Had he promised her he would return to her safe, well and unscarred? He had a life full of people and places filling the chapters of his story. And while his future looked bleak, his story wouldn't end here on the table. She would make sure of that.

At that moment, the door to the farmhouse opened and she saw her younger brother in the doorway. He looked shaken, his face pale.

"_Are you hit_?" she asked, her voice shaking with fear. Her brother shook his head. Relief washed over her and she beckoned him to her. He fell into her body, and she hugged him tightly. "_I need you to do something for me… I need you to get father's medical journal for me. Can you do that?_"

He nodded before racing upstairs to their father's office just as the sound of bullets around the farmhouse intensified. She jumped as she heard an explosion nearby. She held the table with her spare hand, hoping that it would hold her up as her legs threatened to fail her. Footsteps could be heard upstairs and she listened as they crossed the landing and began to make their way downstairs.

Henry came into view, carrying the journal close to his body. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Her father would be returning shortly, and she knew she would have to answer to his many questions.

"_I need you to press down on his chest_," she said as her brother moved towards the unconscious man, confusion etching across his face. "_Do it firmly_."

As he pressed down on the man's chest, Clementine scanned through the book quickly. She needed something that would stop the bleeding and to prevent him from going into shock if that was the case.

Just then, the door to the farmhouse opened. She glanced up. Except the man standing in the doorway wasn't her father.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

"_Step away from the man and put your hands up_!" the man said in their native tongue. Henry lifted his hands up in the air and Clementine widened her eyes.

"_Put your hands back on his chest wound_," Clementine urged to her brother. "_He'll die without your help_."

"_Don't listen to her. I will shoot you if you help him_," the soldier said angrily. "_Then he will die. You'll all die!"_

"_Keep your hand on his wound_," Clementine ignored the soldier. "_He needs you right now_."

Henry nodded and he reapplied the pressure to the man's chest. He was petrified.

Clementine grabbed her father's gun from the top drawer of the cabinet and swiftly aimed it at the man. It seemed strange in her hand, a feeling she never experienced before. She hoped the man didn't see the shaking of the gun as she pointed it at him, but by his smirk, she assumed her saw just how terrified she was.

"Leave… my… house…" Clementine said in broken English. "_Go back to where you just came from and forget about us_."

The man smirked for a moment before lunging towards Clementine, who instinctively pulled the trigger. Her action seemed to shock her, and when she heard the gun jam, she winced internally as the solider laughed and knocked the gun out of her hand, and before she knew it, she had been knocked down to the ground backwards. It took her a few moments to realise the severity of the situation she currently found herself in for the wind had been truly knocked out of her. In the distance, she was able to distinguish a cry coming from her brother as the shock hit him hard. He was young, barely ten years old, and already facing the war that was happening just a few yards away from his home was terrifying enough, but to have a man – a soldier – straddling his sister as another soldier was dying on his dining table seemed to be a nightmare that never seemed to end. Clementine fought with every inch of her being, but she was not as strong as she thought she was. The soldiers body was heavy and she could not seem to be able to gather enough strength to move his hands away from her throat. He released her throat in that moment and pulled her up from the ground with ease, before his fist connected with her face with such force that she fell into the wall and slid down the length. She fell on her side in a heap. She breathed in, her sight fuzzy. The soldier continued to laugh as he came towards her, and before she could comprehend what was happening, he was straddling her and allowing his fists to collide with her face. She struggled against his strength and found that she was much weaker than she had first thought. He placed his hands around her throat once more and squeezed.

As the soldier's hands clenched around her throat, she took quick breaths in hope that she would gather the strength to fight him off. Except no matter what she did, it did not make a difference. The man was squeezing every inch of life from her body as if she was a towel seeping with water. There seemed to be no end, and she began to see black dots form in the edges of her eyes.

She wondered how she had gotten to this point. How she had gone from innocently ignoring the world and war that was raging on outside her front door to dragging an injured soldier into her family home in hope that she could save him. The war was going to take an innocent life, and she would not be able to cope with herself if she ignored the life that was waiting for some kind of salvation to come along. She had been that salvation for him. The instinct to protect, to attempt to save, was the most important thing for her in that moment. He had no one to save him, but she knew of his injury, and she had taken that chance to venture out and bring him to safety.

The soldier was speaking to her but she was unable to grasp any words coming from his mouth. Her mind was fuzzy, her hearing seemed to be failing, and her eyesight was weakening as the black dots merged into each other.

She kicked her legs out, struggling for breath. Black dots began to appear in her vision. Her head throbbed from the beating he had given her, and the soldier seemed to be unrelenting as he squeezed the life from her.

She thought of Henry at that moment, and him having to witness her death. She wondered what would happen to him if the soldier killed her. Would the soldier hurt him? She had to fight… for Henry. If she died at the hands of the soldier, that would mean he would be all alone with the soldier that had killed his sister and would turn his attention to him next. She could not let that happen, no matter how weak she was, she would not allow anything bad to happen to her little brother. She had to keep fighting, she had to keep struggling against the man she had never seen before in her life who was so compliant about taking her life away from her without another thought. _You have to keep fighting, you have to keep fighting, you have to keep fighting,_ she told herself.

But what she didn't except was to see the looming figure of the soldier she saved from the field pull the man from on top of her with such strength that she thought she was dreaming.


End file.
